“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
In the 1 Corinthians 2:9 passage, it says something beautiful. Even if your eye hasn’t seen, and your ear hasn’t heard, God is at work. He prepares for those who love Him. He sent His Son and He sends His Word and Spirit!
The heart of man imagines many things. They can be grand. They can be beautiful. Those things can be honest, sincere, affection, and wise. They can be true. But our Lord is beyond our imagination and even His work that is accomplished for us (!) has elements far, far beyond our understanding. Too quickly we belittle what has been done for us in Christ.
God prepares for those who love him. He considers even those with unseeing eyes and deaf ears. He looks beyond what we can imagine, feel, focus, or aspire to, because, to Him, even that which seems immense to us is an unnecessary boundary. His preparations for our eternity, for the sake of His Son and His mercy, is unimaginable!
So, if imagination is lacking for you, it isn’t for God. 🙂 He uses it even now as He prepares a place in His land to come. If your eyes are glossing over rather than looking at a page, He’s still doing what needs to be done. If even your ears are stopped up by sickness—physical, cultural, emotional, or intellectually related—He still sends His living Word for you.
Lord, thank you for 1 Corinthians 2:9. Thank you for your plans and preparations, for your Son and Spirit! You make us and accept us into your gracious fatherly love. Thank you for the gift of love, and the gift of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit. Grants us love for you and all the gifts and inheritance connected with You and Your Son.
Good morning! I have been reflecting on this since yesterday–and I think it is a bit of a stretch to interpret it this way. (I definitely agree with your point, but find it better grounded in other doxological Scriptures such as Psalms 138 or 145, Romans 8:28-32 or Ephesians 3:20-21).
In 1 Corinthians 2:1-10, after setting aside human wisdom in favor of the one saving gospel–“Christ and him crucified” (2:1-5), Paul then allows that this same gospel message (of the “crucified Lord of glory”–see Galatians 6:14) can be called “wisdom” also, but that it is God’s wisdom, formerly hidden from the world but now revealed in the cross (2:6-10) Thus the subject of 2:9 (quoted loosely from Isaiah 64:4) is not expansive, unimaginable creative possibilities of God or man, but the one unique, wondrous and inexpressible gift of the good news itself–see 2 Corinthians 9:15), now revealed to believers by the Spirit of God.
A blessed Christmas to you! “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”
David J. Susan
David, thank you for your comment. I see now that what I wrote was unclear and you’ve helped center it on the cross, which is exactly where my emphasis should have been.
My thought now, though, is that as central as the Gospel is, remains, and ever shall be . . . still I think I was thinking about God’s imagination and preparation in terms of the new creation. Yes, He prepares these days for us (like in the psalms), but for me I think about His preparing a place for us, which He will bring with Him in His return (hmm, maybe my words are lacking for this, too) as primary concept behind preparing language. But it was unclear of me to make that presumption. Context is so important, and I left mine too vague! Especially since I was pondering Scripture aloud!
You’ve done a good service for me and my readers and I thank you for it. 🙂 You are feeding my thoughts with good stuff from Scripture and helping me use Scriptural images in better alignment with Scripture.
Blessed Christmas to you, too!
Hi again–thank you for your gracious spirit. As to new creation, you are “right on” with that–right at the heart and core of Christmas! “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”
I went ahead and edited the post a bit. I still have a lot to chew on, but hopefully it’s at least better by being explicitly about Jesus. 🙂